dead, so there’s no satisfaction to be had there. But somebody else ought to die for his sins, I say. And fate seems to have selected you. Do you believe in fate? I do. God gave me to my daddy and now God’s given you to me. Killing is too good for you.” And Stewart pleads with him. Please please please. “We’re good people. We’ve never harassed anybody. Why not join the marines and go kill foreign people?” And the hitchhiker says, “I am a foreign people.” And he laughs his brutal psychopathic laugh. And Cindy begs him to spare the children. And the hitchhiker says, “Ma‘am, with all due respect, adulthood is no great prize for anybody and they’d be all messed up if they seen you get killed. They’d prob’ly go on a killing rampage of their own. More merciful to let ‘em die innocent and happy.” And he stuffs them in the trunk, tied and gagged and doped up, and the car is second in line to be compacted, and a little old deputy sheriff named Jerry Sandoval sees a shirttail poking out from under the trunk lid and sashays over and saves the day. He gets the Petersons out and he chases the hitchhiker in a stolen roadster at high speeds on gravel roads through peaceful farm country and the hitchhiker rolls the car and is thrown clear and runs to a nearby cottage where a family of potters lives and holds them hostage until the dad conks him with an earthenware platter and the criminal is sent straight to prison. “You ain’t heard the last of me,” he snarls as he climbs into the prison van, thus setting up a sequel.
I called it Spacious Skies. I sent it to an agent. Iris was busy raising money for a hotline for chemically dependent transgender people. Something like that. My father was sending me neoconservative books, pounds of them. The IRS was after me for $3,000 in back taxes. My Dodge Dart died. Jehovah’s Witnesses kept dropping by to talk about prophecy. Katherine published a tiny collection of prose poems called The River Whose Name Is God, and when I sent her a note of congratulations, she sent me a letter complaining of loneliness.
I was lonely, too. Lonely and longing for a little fame. A line in the St. Paul paper gave me exquisite pain:
Local writer Larry Wyler will read from his work at the St. An thony Park branch library Tuesday at 3:30 P.M. Admission is free.
Local writer.
I clipped it out and taped it to my studio wall. Local writer. Not how I envision myself: the guy who lives up the block and has written some stuff Please, dear Lord, do not let me die a local writer. Bury me out on the lone prairie in an unmarked grave rather than in Calvary Cemetery on Front Street under a tombstone that reads:
Larry Wyler
1942-1985
A guy from
Around here,
He did
About as much
As he could
With what
He had.
I patterned the Petersons after Iris’s friends from the U, Bob and Sandy, and I patterned the murderous hitchhiker after their son, Eirdhru. Only six years old at the time, but I could easily imagine him putting people in a metal compactor.
They live in Frogtown so Eirdhru can grow up with people of other races, who Eirdhru is learning to beat up on. Eirdhru is Gaelic for “he who comes in the night with loud singing.” Sandy, a good liberal, is dedicated to fighting the good fight against cruelty and ignorance and deep in her heart she knows that her child is both of them. A racist skinhead is exactly who Eirdhru will become—the signs are so clear. Sandy and Bob may someday be the Parents of a Famous Mass Killer and believe me, they think about this often themselves. A reasonable fear, given Eirdhru’s temperament. He is rotten to the core, like that Canadian hitchhiker.
Two weeks after I sent the book off, the agent called, breathless, to say, “Guess what?”
“Really?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I am so happy for you.”
Two minutes later, Bob and Sandy walk in and he and I hug a caring male hug (required) and she gives me a sideways look as if I’ve
I called it Spacious Skies. I sent it to an agent. Iris was busy raising money for a hotline for chemically dependent transgender people. Something like that. My father was sending me neoconservative books, pounds of them. The IRS was after me for $3,000 in back taxes. My Dodge Dart died. Jehovah’s Witnesses kept dropping by to talk about prophecy. Katherine published a tiny collection of prose poems called The River Whose Name Is God, and when I sent her a note of congratulations, she sent me a letter complaining of loneliness.
I was lonely, too. Lonely and longing for a little fame. A line in the St. Paul paper gave me exquisite pain:
Local writer Larry Wyler will read from his work at the St. An thony Park branch library Tuesday at 3:30 P.M. Admission is free.
Local writer.
I clipped it out and taped it to my studio wall. Local writer. Not how I envision myself: the guy who lives up the block and has written some stuff Please, dear Lord, do not let me die a local writer. Bury me out on the lone prairie in an unmarked grave rather than in Calvary Cemetery on Front Street under a tombstone that reads:
Larry Wyler
1942-1985
A guy from
Around here,
He did
About as much
As he could
With what
He had.
I patterned the Petersons after Iris’s friends from the U, Bob and Sandy, and I patterned the murderous hitchhiker after their son, Eirdhru. Only six years old at the time, but I could easily imagine him putting people in a metal compactor.
They live in Frogtown so Eirdhru can grow up with people of other races, who Eirdhru is learning to beat up on. Eirdhru is Gaelic for “he who comes in the night with loud singing.” Sandy, a good liberal, is dedicated to fighting the good fight against cruelty and ignorance and deep in her heart she knows that her child is both of them. A racist skinhead is exactly who Eirdhru will become—the signs are so clear. Sandy and Bob may someday be the Parents of a Famous Mass Killer and believe me, they think about this often themselves. A reasonable fear, given Eirdhru’s temperament. He is rotten to the core, like that Canadian hitchhiker.
Two weeks after I sent the book off, the agent called, breathless, to say, “Guess what?”
“Really?” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “I am so happy for you.”
Two minutes later, Bob and Sandy walk in and he and I hug a caring male hug (required) and she gives me a sideways look as if I’ve
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